UCG's Mixed Messages To Its Youth Concerning Winter Family Weekend

United Church of God claims it is all for its youth and is concerned that they learn true messages when it comes to being a UCG Christian.  However, UCG continues to send so many mixed message to its youth that they are left confused.  One thing teenagers and youth quickly can see is when adults tell them one thing and practice another.  They see through the crap that adults blissfully accept as "that is the way it always been so why argue over it anymore."

Case in point, UCG's Winter Family Weekend.  The WFW was actually started by Jim O'Brien and the arrogant boys in Cincinnati did not appreciate him doing something that they had not thought of first.  O'Brien was called on the carpet by UCG and eventually terminated.

UCG was none too happy that non-UCG youth were invited to attend the WFW.  Whether they were from outside UCG in another COG or not even members, they found this wrong.  This upset many who rightfully wanted to know why it was happening.  Apparently, none of them ever thought what better role roll model could a non-COG youth have than to spend several days in a safe Christian environment where UCG members and youth could set an example for them.

There are many ‘family weekend’ events during the year, but by far the largest gatherings are at the WFW over Christmas – this year December 22-26. 

The 21st Lexington Winter Family Weekend, sponsored by the Cincinnati and Lexington churches, will be held at the Griffin Gate Marriott Resort in Lexington, Kentucky. The event is open to everyone.

Its Facebook page says, “The Winter Family Weekend in Lexington, Kentucky has helped change the culture of the Church of God. Twenty years ago God blessed us with an event without borders. People quickly learned that it is what you believe -- not the name on the church door that makes the difference. It’s an environment where friends can meet as equals to worship together and celebrate the Faith that is common to us all.”

In 1997 these two churches were independent corporations affiliated with the United Church of God. By 2004 attendance had increased to 2000, up to 20% of whom were members of other ex-WCG groups. 

At that time UCG’s governance was a strict hierarchy, and the Home Office did not look kindly on large scale local events not being under its control, or including non-members. Furthermore, any form of congregational authority, such as local boards and advisory councils, was regarded as contrary to its founding principles.

The local pastor, Jim O'Brien, was suspended for comments he made during Sabbath announcements at Lexington on 13th March 2004, and was summoned to the Home Office, where he was interrogated about the WFW and his ‘difference of philosophies’ with UCG, by members of Ministerial Services. After breaking a demand not to discuss these matters, even with fellow ministers, his employment was terminated. The Lexington church voted to leave the UCG, while the Cincinnati church was split.  COGNews

Part of the problem UCG has always faced is that they are doing this weekend during one of the most widely observed Christian festivals of the year.  Beautiful bright lights, joyous songs filling the air, warm and wonderful smelling food, and so much more fill the entire complex that the WFW setting is in. Talk about sending a mixed message to its youth!

You are to hate Christmas, but ignore the fact we booked a hotel filled the glorious and beautiful Christmas decorations.  Just put your ear plugs in and blinders on your eyes.  Don't look at Satan or the pretty lights and above all don't eat any Christmas cookies.  Its all pagan, after all.  Look at all of the poor deceived people surrounding you who are being blinded by Satan and feel sorry that they don't know what fun it is to play games down the hallway while they could listen to Dwight Armstrong hymns being played.  After all, it is a foretaste of the Kingdom to come! 

Even with this mixed message being sent to the youth, there is an even bigger problem that UCG parents got upset about last year.  Apparently, there were people not in UCG attending the weekend with them!  Ghastly days!  God forbid if they were set an example for these people that might impress them so much they would want to join UCG.  Oh no, we can't have that!   Even worse, these vile cretins were playing games on Friday night!  OH, NOES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But seriously, it is another mixed message being sent to the youth.  It is OK for the "outsiders" to play games on Friday night, but not you.  You have to sit in your hotel room and play The Talent Game and read Mystery of the Ages while they are all having real fun.  Just remember, handwriting out the Book of Deuteronomy as a Bible Study is more important that having real fun!

All was not well for some at the 2016 event, one ‘UCG Parent’ commenting:

“My family and I participated at winter family weekend this year in Ohio and was very disappointed when we found out that apparently people who are not in our church can participate in the sporting events, and these are people who are playing on Friday nights and are not even members or even go to UCG - they just show up for the perks!! This is very frustrating, because we try to raise our kids up that it’s not OK to play sports on Friday nights!! Our church is supporting people who do those things. I remember back in the WOU days, if you weren’t a regular church member, you didn’t play!”   COGNews

"Get Over it!"

Printed with enthusiastic permission!

Getting over "Get over it"

April 24, 2014 by Sylvie King Parris in Fundamentalism

I belong to a wonderful private Facebook group. What makes this group part of my daily social networking addiction is what we all share in common. We are all former members of a fundamentalist Christian cult.

We share our stories, really bad jokes, get brutally and often profanely honest, connect with old friends, and generally support one another as we all work through what growing up in a very controlled and toxic environment has done to us. Personally, it has helped me finally have a place to share with those who truly understand what my past was really like, something I’ve not been able to do completely until I found this crazy cavalcade of cult survivors.

Every so often someone joins our group, and is dismayed by the raw and painful emotions they encounter there. They don’t quite understand the anger and the pain displayed, often by people who escaped the cult years ago. And so they usually end up offering the same advice: Get over it.

I really hate that platitude.

How does one “get over” discovering that everything they’d been taught about God and religion since childhood was a lie? How does one get over needless deaths or prolonged illnesses brought on by church teachings? How does one get over being inculcated into a “religion” that fostered rape, child abuse, spousal abuse, forced divorce, abandonment of every sort—that created and insisted upon poverty?

How does one “get over” losing family members who will no longer have anything to do with you, because you walked away from “God’s True Church”?

How does one “get over” all the things, and all the ways, that have nearly broken us, when patching and sewing back together all the cracks, rends, and damage done to us is such an agonizingly slow process?

While it is true that time can soften the memories and ease the pain of past traumas, “getting over it” is an impossibility. Life-altering events forever change us—even positive ones. But it seems to be the negative events that we have such a hard time with. Maybe it’s because we suppress the emotions they bring up in us, and don’t share our stories, because we’ve encountered too many “get over it” responses. Maybe it’s because our culture and our churches tell us that we must forgive, must be strong, must move on, must stop “living in the past.”

So we try to do those things, by hiding our anger and anguish. Which only leaves us feeling fragile, stuck and alone.

Everyone wants to feel like they belong, even just a little bit, that they matter, that they are understood, that they are cared for who they are right now, where they are, how they are. Everyone needs compassion—or its more personal sister, empathy.

I sometimes wonder if being empathetic is becoming a lost art. Other people’s pains and struggles can make us feel uncomfortable, yes. And hearing of the pain of another can also make us prideful, insofar as we make the terrible mistake of assuming that we know what they really should be feeling and doing.

When that happens, the other person—the person who only needs to be heard and maybe even a little respected—finds themselves dismissed. Declared (however subtly) lacking and weak, they turn away, feeling just as bad, if not a good deal worse, than they did before they reached out.

Empathy does the opposite. Empathy doesn’t cower at the brutal honesty of pain. It doesn’t write off the sufferer as immature just because they fail to take pre-formulated steps to wellness.

Empathy embraces the person and the pain they are wracked with. It lets the sufferer have freedom to heal in their own way and time: it does not rush them, or immediately formulate a solution for them. It allows him or her emote, to vent, to feel like someone finally gives a damn about them.

People who are empathetic—empaths—often understand suffering up close and personal. They are coming from a place that is true to Jesus’ ancient and beautiful teaching of “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” They know how to do that. They know what that means.

All of us need empaths in our lives. They are, to me, a divine blessing, tools in the hands of a loving God, gifted to us so that we can feel less alone, less afraid, less misunderstood, less like giving up. Their examples of kindness and patience, and their capacity for loving so beautifully, are something that I strive to emulate.

I want to show others the love that I have been shown. If you would join me in this nurturing and passing along of empathy, maybe together we can bring a little bit of healing into the world.

---

Sylvie King Parris is an admin on the Unfundamentalist Facebook page.She blogs at It’s a Mis-fit.

"Wormwood" Has Been Identified and is a Church of God Member!

Forget everything you ever heard Herbert Armstrong tell you about "wormwood" from the Book of Revelation.  He was wrong!  Wormwood is alive today!  He has been identified and is a Church of God member!  Who knew??????

The THIRD TRUMPET ANGEL sounded on September 5, 2004 when Mrs. Barbara Flurry died. But someone may ask, Why would the death of Mrs. Flurry be connected with this “great star” in verse 10? Remember that the HEART is a symbol for the PCG ministry and someone specific from that ministry is being described in this prophecy as “a great star from heaven” who is being identified by God to be the root cause of the spiritual congestive heart failure of the PCG.

Who is this “great star from heaven”? We know that a “star” signifies a “member.” So this is referring to a MEMBER of the ministry in God’s Church. Who is this minister from the PCG being mentioned here?

And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. (Revelation 8:11)

What is “Wormwood” in the Bible?

Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood; (Deuteronomy 29:18)

The introduction of paganism in God’s Church is “Wormwood” in God’s eyes.

But God is giving the name “Wormwood” to a minister in God’s Church in this last end. But why give the name Wormwood?

From The Philadelphia Trumpet, November 1995, Simon Magus History—Prophecy for Today

Here is what The New Concise Bible Dictionary states about Simon Magus: “In Acts 8:9 a pagan wonder-worker who had amazed the local Samaritans. He claimed to be a manifestation of God (v. 10)…when he saw Philip’s signs and wonders, and the Holy Spirit given when Peter and John laid hands on the converts, he offered cash in return for the gift (vv. 17ff.)… he was obsessed with the idea of power” (p. 517, 1989).

There is another type in this last end who was so obsessed with the idea of power. He is this Wormwood being prophesied in Revelation chapter 8. 

This last end Wormwood also thought to become a GREAT ONE just like his first century predecessor, Simon Magus. That’s why this spiritual Wormwood is being described by God as “a great star from heaven” or “a great member of the PCG ministry.”

That future is pertaining to this last end we are living in today. So another type of Simon Magus has infiltrated God’s Church whose influence far transcends his local region. This is the how paganism such as Mother’s Day, Irish Dance and Cremation was introduced to the PCG, because of this minister’s influence.

Who is this minister? 

Here is the 2017 version of "wormwood."  We all knew that the Philadelphia Church of God was evil to its core and now it has been confirmed!

John McDonald is "wormwood!"  This evil man is satan personified and has brought in such appalling evil as Irish Dance, Mother's Day observance and cremation!  Shocking!  Just shocking!

McDonald is also combining forces with Satan's other agent, Stephen Flurry.

Stephen Flurry and Brad Macdonald is already seeing their spiritual SICKNESS in the context of the Edstone work wherein it added nothing to the work of the PCG. At first when they went there, they thought that they would be able to acquire the Stone of Destiny in Scotland for themselves but God did not bless their efforts. So what have they done to save face or avoid humiliation? They concocted a plan to replace the real “Jacob’s pillar stone” in the minds of the PCG membership and came up with a very bright idea of making Mr. Armstrong’s supposed “Prayer Rock” as the new Stone of Destiny. Then to perfectly implement their plan, Stephen persuaded his father to give a sermon last January 2017 that made Mr. Armstrong a type of Jacob or Israel, while his father would claim the throne of the current physical royal household in Britain for himself, thus becoming its new king until Christ’s return.

You can read the full story of Wormy McDonald here:  THE SEVENTH SEAL: The History and Prophecy of the Philadelphia Church of God

Does God Let People Deliberately Die In Order To Save Them From Future Calamities?

Texas church shooter, 26, who killed at least 26 people - 

including eight members of one family

Today a Lutheran pastor and a conservative has set off a firestorm after he wrote the following concerning the church shooting in Texas this past Sunday:

"For those with little understanding of and less regard for the Christian faith, there may be no greater image of prayer’s futility than Christians being gunned down mid-supplication. But for those familiar with the Bible’s promises concerning prayer and violence, nothing could be further from the truth. When those saints of First Baptist Church were murdered yesterday, God wasn’t ignoring their prayers. He was answering them.

We also pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God’s will be done. Sometimes, his will is done by allowing temporal evil to be the means through which he delivers us from eternal evil. Despite the best (or, more accurately, the worst) intentions of the wicked against his children, God hoists them on their own petard by using their wickedness to give those children his victory, even as the wicked often mock the prayers of their prey."

"We also pray in the Lord’s Prayer that God’s will be done. Sometimes, his will is done by allowing temporal evil to be the means through which he delivers us from eternal evil. Despite the best (or, more accurately, the worst) intentions of the wicked against his children, God hoists them on their own petard by using their wickedness to give those children his victory, even as the wicked often mock the prayers of their prey. "

"So when a madman with a rifle sought to persecute the faithful at First Baptist Church on Sunday morning, he failed. Just like those who put Christ to death, and just like those who have brought violence to believers in every generation, this man only succeeded in being the means through which God delivered his children from this evil world into an eternity of righteousness and peace."

“We do not need to fear the day of persecution that’s coming to the church, because God said it’s going to come. He warned us over 2,000 years ago the day was coming. And rather than fear it, He said just endure it. Now ‘endure it’ is a hard word. ‘Endure it’ doesn’t mean that they might take your ice cream away today. ‘Endure it’ means it may be a rough day. It may be a rough few years. But the one who endures to the end will be delivered.”   See:  When The Saints Of First Baptist Church Were Murdered, God Was Answering Their Prayers

The above quotes from the Lutheran pastor are by no means unique to him.  This has always been a common theme in the Church of God.  I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have heard ministers and members say that when a person has died from either a horrible accident or in their sleep, that God was saving them from the soon coming tribulation.  They had fought the good fight and God was saving them a little early.

Even when small babies or children have died, callous ministers and members have said the same thing.  God took their lives so that they might have a better life later.  Who in the hell wants to hear that shit when they are grieving?

While the Christian hope certainly is in a better life to come, God certainly is not letting unborn babies or 98-year-old women be murdered in church just to save them for something better.  This kind of thinking is just one more piece of rotten fruit lobed into the already putrid basket of legalism.

 

Dixon Cartwright On Why he Is Shutting Down "The Journal"

The Painful Truth blog reached out to Dixon Cartwright regarding the reason he has chosen to shut down The Journal in January of 2018.

One of the comments Dixon made in his letter to the PT was this:

My original intent for my newspaper was to help people maintain contact with other COG Christians across the boundaries of the various COG groups and also to provide a forum. We were kind of like a blog before there were blogs. We were different from In Transition in that John’s aim was to have two of his trusted friends check out articles before they were published in In Transition for correctness of doctrine. The friends were Ron Dart and Leon Walker. I did not share the view with John that that was an appropriate consideration for my newspaper. Rather, I welcomed creative essays, even those advocating unorthodox versions of doctrines, and did not feel the need to make sure they were correct or for me to agree with them. As a result, we printed many such opinion pieces — editorials, letters, essays — with many of them disagreeing with each other, frequently in the same issue of The Journal. My main consideration was that writers deal politely with each other in their doctrinal and political discussions, especially since people with different interpretations of Scripture can reasonably prove their varying doctrines from the Bible.

I think this is what made The Journal more widely accepted than some other venues.  As crazy as some of the ads and articles were, he gave them a place to share their viewpoints.  Armstrongism has had a horrible track record in doing everything its power in shutting people down over the decades.  The Internet has changed all of that and none of them have any control over the flow of information anymore.

I think the Ambassador Report was the forefront in starting all of the blogs, websites, and other venues that have popped up over the decades since the late 1980's.  Church members were hungry for information and news about the constant upheavals, whether over doctrine or administration problems, that they eagerly read anything they could get their hands on.  After Ambassador Report stopped being published, John Robinson started In Transition to document the ongoing issues in the Churches of God. The Journal filled a unique void in the church news sphere and was also instrumental in sharing the constant drama during all of the doctrinal changes in the Worldwide Church of God.

Read the entire letter here:  Dixon Cartwright. Why he is closing down the Journal